There was a lot of congratulatory backslapping between officials at the soft launch of Government’s Digital Transformation Strategy on Thursday. Supported through the St. Maarten Trust Fund’s Digital Government Transformation Project (DGTP), which is implemented with the assistance of the National Recovery Program Bureau (NRPB), the strategy will act as a seven-year roadmap to guide government’s activities into a digital future of providing faster and more efficient online services.
Making it easier for citizens and businesses to access government services and interact with ministries and government departments lies at the heart of this digital strategy, which has been coined “eSXM”. The strategy is also meant to boost the country’s resilience in the case of any future natural disaster. A crucial aspect in bouncing back quickly is government’s ability to access and share information so as to be able to coordinate and carry out relief initiatives in the chaotic moments immediately after a disaster.
But resilience is not merely defined by the government’s ability to tackle natural disasters. If the hack of government-owned utility company GEBE has taught anything, it is that a digital defence system is of vital importance to national security. One would hope the Government’s IT gurus will construct a much stronger firewall than the “Open Door” security protocols their colleagues at GEBE had put it in place.
While the government’s efforts to join the digital age are now finally gathering steam, its efforts to steer the island into the direction of using more renewable energy is languishing. Although a national energy plan had been presented and approved by the Council of Ministers of the Sarah Wescott-Williams government in 2014 it soon disappeared in the maelstrom of changing government coalitions. The present government announced in August 2021 a partnership with New York-based company GridMarket to analyse St. Maarten’s future energy needs and present a grid-optimisation plan to GEBE. But to do so they will need detailed information from the national utility company. The prime minister told the press recently that this information has not been provided yet due to the Ransomware hack at GEBE.
Meanwhile, government officials of Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba told the press on Wednesday how happy they are with the 33.6 million euros the Dutch government had made available to accomplish an accelerated pace towards renewable energy on the three islands. In an epoch defined by climate change and the rapid development of artificial intelligence, government must accelerate its efforts to introduce renewable energy into the national grid post-haste lest it not fall behind any further than it already is!
